Dodgers 8, Braves 0: Maybe Clayton Kershaw’s Gonna Be Alright

Clayton Kershaw is alive, and thus, he is not suddenly terrible. He showed as much tonight, dominating the Braves over seven shutout innings, striking out 10 and scattering four hits, who were the only baserunners of the day.

Because of how insulated the worlds of Twitter and the like tend to be, people tire of whatever basic saber narrative that’s prominent. Narratives like, “Hey, maybe Clayton Kershaw hasn’t actually been that terrible and everything is alright?” It’s too dismissive, I suppose, and it’s understandable resentment to an extent. However, I think those people also need to understand that most people don’t read the crap on blogs, and that most people see stuff like this instead:

https://twitter.com/BBTN/status/603234329754476544

And no, Dodgers Digest writers and our dozens (DOZENS OF US! DOZENS!!!) of Twitter followers snarking about idiotic mainstream narratives doesn’t exactly balance that out.

Anyway, going back to the game, Juan Uribe‘s last sacrifice as a Dodger was apparently himself to the Braves for the offense returning, as the Dodgers got eight runs and put 14 men on base, including four doubles and a homer. The final blow of the night coming on an Adrian Gonzalez two-run shot that scored himself and Howie Kendrick.

That said, I would argue that the actual highlights of the game were Alex Guerrero attempting to slide while not blowing out his ACL…

…and Enrique Hernandez really really really trying to help the Dodgers sustain rallies.

—–

-Given all the offense early in the year, this was a surprising factoid:

6 runs are a season high for runs in one inning. #Dodgers.

— AlaNNa Rizzo (@alannarizzo) May 27, 2015

-And here’s a non-surprising factoid about Kershaw’s start:

Kershaw: 21 swinging strikes, 101 pitches. A 20.8% swinging strike rate is the second-highest for a start in his career (min 75 pitches)

— Daniel Brim (@DanielBrim) May 27, 2015

-During the course of the game, Uribe’s trade was re-opened and agreed upon, and after further details come out, we’ll be covering that trade in the morning.